Thursday, June 26, 2008

I was RAK'ed.....by lovely Michele of Just Another Stitching Blog! And her partner in crime was Monique who designed this lovely stitch holder and sent it along to me. How awesome to get a surprise gift in the mail like this! It certainly was a surprise and such a warm feeling to think that someone thought of me, to send me such a sweet gift. Thank you so much, Michele, you really made my day for me :-DFor stitching news, Love is back on the scene. I frogged what seemed to be a huge section and I'm back on track. The wedding is 3 months away (September 27th) so I'm in good time for getting this finished and framed for display at the reception. Three months away....where has the time gone?

And I'm been in a reading craze recently. I finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, a really great story about the relationship between 2 women in Afghanistan. I hate to say, its not as good as The Kite Runner, but still very enjoyable.And after that it was on to The Birth House by Ami McKay, a wonderful story about a young midwife in Nova Scotia, set during World War I. I love how this dates how women lived at the time, in a rural area, and what men's attitudes towards women were like at the time. It was a really great read, I highly recommend it!

I've just started a new book called Sister of My Heart, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. This one was recommended by Margaret, so I ordered it at the library and it came in just as I was finishing The Birth House. Keep those book recommendations coming...I can't seem to get enough these days!

The Sisterhood draw is coming close and I have a nice long list of names for the next round! Sorry no dress to see yet.....

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

....at the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pattern. I don't want to divulge my dress colour just yet!

Its coming along nicely and I should be finished with the pattern next week. Make sure you get your name in for the next drawing of this fabulous design. I'm collecting names and already have quite a few.

Last night I finished up Mindi's piece for the Quaker Friendship Round Robin. This is a great pattern for a round robin. The sections are not overly big and get finished fairly quickly. And I love, love, love Mindi's fabric and floss choices. They look great together. The fabric is Silkweaver Days Gone by 36 ct and the floss is by Vicki Clayton, Raisin Wine is the main colour and the accent is Old Maid of the Sail. Hmmm, the silk floss really likes to knot very easily though, has anyone else found that with VC silk?The kids are officially finished school and Nick is to start a construction job this morning...but he's not out of bed yet. We'll see how long this lasts!

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Lucky me, I am the next one to receive this wonderful chart, My Needle and My Floss, They Comfort Me or is it has now become known The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pattern!

Harmien started the Sisterhood when she offered up her pattern to someone who wanted to stitch it. I'm not sure where it went after that but its been making the rounds and travelling the world of stitchers.

Anna drew my name after she finished stitching her lovely lady and it just arrived on my doorstep in the mail. Considering how far this pattern has now travelled....from The Netherlands, France, Malayasia, United States (a couple of times), and Australia, it has now safely arrived here in Canada and with such careful packaging, its in amazingly great shape.

I can't wait to get started stitching and I'm a little undecided about the dress colour. I think I'll have to pull my GAST threads and see which ones jumps out.

And I couldn't resist taking a scan of the some of the signatures - everyone who has stitched it thus far has signed and dated it. How cool!!!But until I can get started, I have Mindi's piece for the Quaker Friendship RR to work on. I've made a nice little start. I love her fabric, its perfect for an antique style sampler and she chose lovely variegated silks in reds/browns. Donna has already stitched her section in the lower right hand corner and I have started the motifs in the upper right. Pretty huh!I hope to have The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pattern stitched and finished in the next couple of weeks. Let me know if you want your name put in the draw for the pattern when she is ready to fly to new places!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Its been quite a while so this poor little WIP was calling out to me ~ CHS Alphabet. I spent the past few evenings on it and finished up L is for Lion, and then started outlining some more of the blocks. I think I was hoping to pick this up and get one letter accomplished each week...and that was months ago!

We've had some wild weather this weekend, with several thunderstorms since Friday. I was online early Friday evening when one huge bolt of lightning hit, and the computer flared at me and our house alarm went off! Amazingly enough we didn't lose power. But our network router went as did the network cards in my computers and in Kristy's. Lucky for us, hubby is a computer pro. But we'll have to get the alarm people in to fix up the problem with that, as its not functioning at all (psst, don't tell anyone!) On Saturday, there was a family bridal shower for Carrie and J-F at my sister's home. It was a gorgeous day and held outside. Carrie got an amazing amount of great gifts, lucky girl, but she is hoping to pack them away until they buy their first home.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Thank you for all your comments on my LHN finish! I really love working on these sweet designs.I needed to pick something else up to do at the cottage over the weekend...where there is no magnifier...and I decided on Blackbird Designs Sunflower House. I have loved this one for along time but since it was 'retired', I was so thrilled to find it for sale by another stitcher. The pattern came with this gorgeous blue linen. I'm not sure if its the called for fabric which is called Friendship Blue, but it looks wonderful with the floss colours.I didn't get too much done however, as a book grabbed all my attention. Its not too often that I start a book that I just can't put down. This one was called The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I only started reading it on Thursday night, and finished it Sunday morning. What an amazing story! Luckily I have another one book by the same author ~ A Thousand Splendid Suns ~ waiting for me at home to start.

And on to Love with a Capital L~I really think I need to put this away for a little while. I have made so many little mistakes with this piece recently, including the large motif on the lower left, well not such a little mistake maybe since the entire thing is about 4 rows too high. And of course I didn't discover this until it was pretty much finished. Counting threads on 40 ct fabric really seems to unravel me, uh no pun intended there. So I haven't decided yet if its time to frog, I started working on the next row of flowers and thought I would better be able to tell if I could fit the wording in without too much trouble, until another mistake became apparent last night. Yup, I definitely think its time to work on something else for a while and look at Love again with fresh eyes.

Friday, June 06, 2008

I finished up this little Watermelon square the other night, just a bit of a break from the 40 ct fabrics. These work up so quickly and are so fun to do. The backing fabric and ribbon came with the little kit that I had ordered from Mary Kathryn (Ehandcrafts). I think I"ll use the fabric to make borders for the square and then make it into a little pillow ornament.

And has everyone seen this new design from Little House Needleworks? Its the first in the Little Women series. I couldn't resist and put my name in for an automatic shipment for these.....

Our weather forecast is so crazy - the temperature is going up to 30 degrees C today, with a humidex of 42 C. Good thing we are headed to the cottage first thing tomorrow morning. We would be going tonight but Nick is headed to the Brooklin Fair with his girlfriend. May be I can drag hubby there too :-D

Monday, June 02, 2008

Thank you for the anniversary good wishes! I really love reading comments and I am so appreciate of the time each person takes out of their busy lives to leave a few words behind for me ~ Thank you!!!

Hubby and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner at the David Duncan House in Toronto, actually one of his favourite places to go. Of course he gets there far more often than I do, since its so close to his office, which means a favourite spot for business lunches. We had hoped to go to the new Indiana Jones movie, but the time we wanted was sold out and to have to wait for the later show, meant I probably would have fallen asleep and we wouldn't be home in time to pick Kristy up from work.Hopefully we can get in to see it soon!On Saturday I worked away and finally finished the machine quilting on 1 my Lucky Stars quilt, although I think the name should be Long Stars quilt. This one has been 5 years in the making. I have no excuse why, I absolutely love the blue/purple batiks that I used in this, but it just seemed to fall to the bottom of the pile of quilting that I kept adding on. That's a terrible fault of mine that I keep seeing new projects that I want to do and start, and forget about finishing off the numerous starts that I have made. But I do get around to them eventually :-D]